Monday, May 23, 2016

A British-manufactured cluster bomb, BL-755 cluster bomb is designed to be dropped by UK-manufactured Tornado jets used by the Saudi Arabia, has been found in a Yemeni village, all but confirming the banned weapons are being used by Saudi-led coalition forces in the Yemeni civil war.

The highly controversial weapons were banned in conflict decades ago. Amnesty International discovered the unexploded munition during an inspection of a village in northern Yemen. Since the 1980s and 1990s the UK is thought to have sold large numbers of cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia and the UAE (which is also part of the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition), and the weapon is known to be in the ordnance stockpiles of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

“Cluster bombs are one of the nastiest weapons in the history of warfare, rightly banned by more than 100 countries, so it’s truly shocking that a British cluster munition has been dropped on a civilian area in Yemen,” Amnesty International’s head of UK Arms Controls said, “Given that this type of cluster bomb is very likely to have been used in combination with Tornado war planes which the UK has also sold to Saudi Arabia, there’s even a possibility that British support personnel might have been involved in the cluster bombing of Yemen. This would be an absolute scandal if confirmed.”